Sector size in new HDDs influences on images and performance

12/24/2010

Today I received an email from HP on my notebook that informs the need to include in the images a KB from Microsoft or then change formatting even in Linux!!!

The document is attached in the post, but the explanation is, at least, intriguing. I was impressed to know that wasn’t disclosed that this problem exists in a more extensive and was not available on Windows Update.

The problem is that industry HDDs changed the sector size of 512 bytes to 4 Kbytes and simply not advised manufacturers that optimize chipset and BIOS for working with blocks of 512 bytes, which can generate a slowness of absurd 300%, mainly in the performance of Windows XP or newer SOs when installed by image.